7000-Series Hiccups and Missed Opportunities

In case you missed it, I published two new posts about the 7000-series on Greater Greater Washington this week.

The first looks at some hiccups in the process, including MWAA's dispute with Metro over costs (which could delay or derail the contract) and Maryland's delinquency, which seems to be nixing the testing/commissioning facility necessary for the new cars.

And the second post looks at significant missed opportunities with the 7000-series, including not adding more doors, failure to transition to articulated trainsets, and a loss of design element uniformity.

The 7000 series: Not your father's railcar

Metro will soon place an order for a new series of railcars. The new cars, the 7000 series, will be quite different from Metro's current fleet of cars.

One notable difference with the cars is that they will be quad-sets. They will still be married pairs, like WMATA's current rolling stock, but instead of having a cab at each end of the pair, a cab will only be present at one end.

A second married pair facing the opposite direction will give the set of four a cab at each end. By eliminating cabs in half the cars, this configuration will give the cars more passenger capacity. A control panel will be located at the other end of each pair to facilitate movement in yards.

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Image from WMATA

You Don't Auto-Complete Me

A few minutes ago, I went to Google Maps to find the location of the Chevy Chase Library relative to the Capital Crescent Trail.

With the address in hand, I began typing. It's located at 8005 Connecticut Avenue. On the map below, that's at the intersection of Connecticut and Dunlop.


When I started typing, Google tried to be helpful. "Bulgaria, is that where you're looking? No? Italy? Japan, maybe?"

I mean, my map is already hovering over the area where the library is! I just wanted an exactish location. None of the top 10 suggestions are even in the Western Hemisphere!

Come on Google, you can do better than that, can't you? Ever consider that someone might be typing an address into a maps application?

Read This

I know my posting's been down lately. I'm working on trying to improve. I have been writing a lot more for Greater Greater Washington and not crossposting here, so if you aren't subscribed to me there, consider signing up for GGW's RSS feed or just the RSS for my posts.

Anyway, I know that I've done a terrible job keeping my sidebar links up to date, and unfortunately, I don't have time for an update at the moment. However, I think all of you interested in transit or planning (or policymaking) should take a moment right now and visit Human Transit.

Human Transit is one of the best blogs I've come across about general transit planning commentary. It's one of the most valuable entries in my RSS feed. And at about a post a day, the information is quality but which does not overwhelm with volume, which can be a problem on other sites.

Here are a few of the posts that I really enjoyed (in order by date of posting, newest first):

• streetcars vs light rail ... is there a difference?
• vancouver: the great broadway debate
• the power and pleasure of grids
• frequency and freedom on driverless rapid transit
• unhelpful word watch: captive rider
• the "transit isn't green because it runs empty" line
• arrival by train: how end stations differ from through stations
• paris rapid transit: the four levels of nomenclature